Glossary

Ghost account

An active SaaS license tied to a real user that hasn't logged any meaningful activity in 30+ days.

Also known as: dormant account, inactive seat, zombie account

Ghost accounts are the most common form of SaaS waste. The user exists, the credentials work, the seat is billed monthly — but the account hasn't been used in weeks.

Some ghosts are former employees whose offboarding missed this tool. Some are current employees whose role moved them off the workflow. Some are accounts created for a one-time project that never got cleaned up.

Every ghost account is both a wasted dollar and a security exposure. They're rarely covered by current MFA policy, rarely watched by SIEM, and the credentials are usually old enough to have been in at least one breach corpus.

Examples

Related terms

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